A Tale of Five Mothers
by xirus11
Summary: Aman'thul, killed by Sargeras, is being dragged to Argus to be tortured to serve the Burning Legion. There is no hope for the future. No hope that he can see evidence of outside of his own mind. Time has betrayed him...or so it seems.


Aman'Thul felt chains dragging at his spirit, but they were nothing compared to the shock. Sargeras, covered in and filled with fel fire. The broken corpses of countless worlds, Constellar, Aggramar, Norgannon, Eonar, and then his own. Betrayed and overthrown. How long, he thought, until he would be the last of his kind?

Time was his to command. How could he have not seen this day coming? He had given others visions of their own deaths - and yet he could never have guessed his own. Perhaps it was too dark a thought. He remembered what Nozdormu had seen. He thought "maybe I was wrong. maybe corrupted Nozdormu was right to meddle in the timeways."

"No, you were right! This is the chosen path of fate!" a dark shivarra named Asara, self-titled Mother of Night, whispered, one chain locked into place in a red room - a stereotypically-painted torture room complete with pernicious, scantily-clad sadists holding the whips. In the background...Argus. They were going to torture a baby of their own kind? Sargeras, please don't! And with us present watching the whole time? He was tempted to break then and there and offer to serve Sargeras if only to spare Argus pain - but he was clearly part of Sargeras's plan. There was nothing he could do for Argus but stay strong for him. To be an example of fortitude in the hopes that both himself and Argus might be rescued some day - rescued. Was that a vision of the future or a delusion of grandeur? Aman'thul didn't know anymore, but it didn't matter - there was no hope left otherwise. "Your kind can only serve the Legion, or the Void! Be thankful! We are leading you down the righteous path - the one of life and light! Together we will save the universe from the hungering darkness," Asara continued as the final chain locked into place.

"By submitting to it, I see," Aman'thul thought back. "What a hero you are."

Aman'thul screamed as searing pain shot through his spiritual body. "How many souls felt pain exactly like that?" Noura, Mother of Flames, asked. "How many innocent souls burned for the sake of your kind exactly like that thanks to your 'Origination' machines? Some hero YOU are. Don't condescend us. We do not selfishly serve our own kind as you did - we serve ALL of existence. And we will burn it all to dust to save it if we have to! Starting...with...you..." Noura stretched out her hand to caress the titan's spirit, smiling with a wicked grin before swiping and smacking him across the face.

"What will be left to save when you're done burning it all away?" Aman'thul asked? And suddenly a map - a bright blue cosmos - opened up around him.

"Dust, of course." As Thu'raya, Mother of the Cosmos, spoke, green crept across the cosmos until the blue turned to emerald. "From dust came worlds. From worlds came life." There it was, all that they knew, what they erroneously deemed a universe, coated in fel fire. "We will give everything to save our home. The one we share. Even if that means giving ourselves in the end."

"You are completely deranged..." Aman'thul replied. Suddenly it was bitterly cold, almost as cold as the deepest regions of space.

"No, we are completely logical. You just haven't known true despair." Diima, Mother of Gloom, responded in a blank, detached voice. "But you will, dear. And then you will see that its only logical, and that your brother Sargeras hasn't betrayed you at all - he's helping you, actually. That's what we're here to do. Your mind is flawed. Diseased. Grandiose. You can't see what we can. But you will, love. Then you'll join us as comrades instead of recalcitrant children in need of a good spanking. I look forward to that day and what little time we'll all share together before its gone."

"Before we can spend our less-than-eternal future together, however," Asara added, "You need to let go of the ones you cling to. I saw your mind. You were just sympathizing with a minion of the VOID. AND YOU DARE JUDGE ME FOR WIELDING THAT POWER? HA! You're already a step away from knowingly serving it yourself! As it stands, you're already serving it unknowingly. If Azeroth is not dealt with, she will become a mindless minion of the void, just like your precious bronze dragons, your titanforged, and the 'saviors' you delusionally believe will come to your rescue. The future is indeed yours to decide, Highfather. And you will be brought back from your OWN derangement to see and SERVE the true path as we have!"

"You will never convince me to destroy all that the Titans have helped create." Aman'thul added. "For their sake, and for the sake of Eonar, the Lifebinder, I will not turn."

"No, you will." Asara smiled. "As she did."

"W-what? No, that's a lie. I can feel her presence far from here! You're lying!" Aman'thul added.

"Where?" Asara asked, with a mocking half-smile. "Another delusion of grandeur. See? You're racking them up like a maddened voidling already. She's serving us now, far from here, on the front lines. Why wouldn't she? As we already explained - WE serve life. YOU only served your own! You control your own thoughts, Highfather. You have the power to shape more than time - you can shape reality itself if you so choose. I will help you manifest this power - but first, you need to be freed from your delusions that you cling to for safety. From your selfish ego that keeps you from seeing the truth."

Darkness closed in around Aman'thul, and began to pierce him. He faded until he blacked out.

"Wake up, Amrenal!" Amrenal could hear his mother, Asa, calling for him. "And don't forget to take your meds before you go to school this time! Remember the ruckus you caused and how embarrassing it was for both of us!"

"Don't worry, mom. I have no desire to go through that again." Amrenal, who was now 16 and a sophomore in high school, had a clear-cut memory of the episode in question. He had them for as long as he could remember - since he was five, according to his mother..

Every time he got bullied enough or his teachers and parents punished him enough he would put his hands out in front of himself and try to banish them to the end of time. He pictured himself as a character in one of his favorite video games. Before that he pictured himself as a giant yellow dragon and before that as a T-Rex rawring screaming "You won't skin me, mafiosos!" as he swung his arms.

His favorite gaming account was taken and deleted by his mother after the fifth involuntary commitment. He had been committed eight times since he was five. He had racked up multiple diagnosis and prescriptions. It just...none of it felt real to him. The games felt realer than this...hell. This living hell.

Everyone was so mean and called him the mean one. His mother constantly compared him to his schitzophrenic father that went home to India before he was born, lamenting what a good boy he was before the episodes started. Kids laughing at the "crazy kid" who always had weird fits and was fun to pick on. Teachers who had partitioned him away from the general population to an emotional support classroom run by some rotund, pernicious female teacher named Thelma. He wasn't diagnosed with schitzophrenia himself, though neither was his father - among Amrenal's diagnoses were Asperger's disorder.

It was thought that his episodes were part of unhealthy obsessions, a phase he was going through that he would grow out of. But he hadn't. It was a defense mechanism, and the drugs, which made him slow and suggestive, did not make the defense mechanisms less necessary. But he took them anyway. He was told that he was better when he took them. And if he didn't behave he got prescribed more. If he didn't take them he was restrained and forced to - or committed and forced to.

"How's my curry?" Asa asked.

"Good, mom!" Amrenal replied. "May I have some sour cream please?"

Asa's face twisted. "You know its bad manners to ask for toppings so quick after eating. I guess I'll just make eggs tomorrow instead."

"No I like curry-"

"Then why are you so quick to demand sour cream? Its the reason you're so fat and its insulting when I-"

"I like it with sour cream-"

"DON'T INTERRUPT ME! GOD THAT IS A TERRIBLE HABIT YOU HAVE!"

"LEAVE ME ALONE I'M JUST TRYING TO EAT BREAKFAST!"

"I AM LEAVING YOU ALONE YOU'RE THE ONE BEGGING ME FOR SOUR CREAM AFTER I PUT ALL THAT EFFORT INTO MAKING YOU A MEAL YOU DON'T APPRECIATE! YOUR FATHER NEVER APPRECIATED ANYTHING I DID, EITHER!"

"FINE I'LL GET UP AND GET IT MYSELF!" Amrenal got up and walked over to grab the sour cream from the fridge, but Asa walked and stood between the fridge and Amrenal.

"NO, YOU WILL EAT THE CURRY AND LIKE IT AS I MADE IT YOU UNGRATEFUL SON OF A BITCH."

"I HATE YOU!" Amrenal replied.

"HOW DARE YOU SAY SUCH A THING TO YOUR OWN MOTHER! I BET YOU WERE ABOUT TO HIT ME JUST NOW TOO, YOUR OWN MOTHER! FINE, GO PUT YOUR SHOES AND JACKET ON AND GO WAIT BY THE BUS!"

It was cold at the bus stop, but at least it was better than being driven to school by Asa. Always starting arguments, claiming I started them, and driving with unimaginable road rage for the duration of each one.

The bus arrived. A "short bus for retards" as it was often mocked. He got on.

"You seem a little down." Delma, the bus driver, said as he hopped on.

"Another argument." Amrenal replied.

"Well, she's your mother..." Delma replied. "Try to be respectful."

"I do its just so hard when she yells at me like that. Today she called me a son of a bitch." Amrenal said.

"Well, it sounds like she's right as usual." Delma replied with a smile that caused Amrenal to dawn on the realization that her mother had inadvertently insulted herself. Both of them laughed.

"Sorry I'll let you focus on driving" Amrenal said.

"You apologize too much, kid. I've got this. I'm here to listen." Delma said.

The bus drove to the next student - a girl by the name of Nara, who was born a boy by the name of Nathan. She always picked on Amrenal talking about how he will never get laid and was obsessed with stupid games.

"Just ignore her." Delma had advised repeatedly en route to Nara for the past year. "Don't even respond. Attention is what they're after." But it never worked. She just pushed and pushed each time.

"Sup, nerd!" Nara said. "I heard your parents took your games from you for good this time!"

"Leave me alone." Amrenal replied. A futile gesture.

"Nah, you're way too much fun to pick on. You get offended way too easily."

"Like you do when people call you a boy?"

"What did you say you little transphobic homophobe? Is that why you use the solo stalls to change? Afraid someone will see you get an erection from seeing other boys naked?"

"No I just don't want to see dicks. I get enough of them shoved in my face every day." Amrenal said, then under his breath, "Dicks like you."

Nara screamed, "HEY DELMA HE CALLED ME A DICK HE CALLED ME A DICK!"

Delma replied, "Apologize Amrenal or I'm going to have to write you up again."

Amrenal shouted, "BUT SHE'S BEEN PICKING ON ME THIS WHOLE TIME!"

Delma replied, "And you're supposed to be ignoring her. Its not who started it its who finished it."

Amrenal, terrorized by the thought of being driven to school by Asa, said "Fine. I'm sorry."

Nara said, "You don't actually mean it. You never apologize when you actually should."

Delma said nothing in response and her silence resonated as agreement. Amrenal sat looking forward away from the smiling Nara, who said "You gonna cry? Real men don't cry. You're such a pussy. I bet your mother never spanked you." Its true she didn't - but honestly being physically beaten would be welcome in place of the arguing. At least then Amrenal could defend himself - or could he? "The boy who hit his own mother."

The bus arrived and Nara raced off to go tell Thelma about what Amrenal did.

This was daily. Daily he had the same experiences. But today would end up being worse than usual.

"Delma told me in private that she can't take you two going back and forth anymore. When its just Nara the ride goes fine, but you two together are like a match and gasoline. You're being brought in by your mother from now on." Thelma said to Amrenal.

"I can ignore her I can behave myself please reconsider."

"No, you can't, and I won't." Thelma dropped the verbal gavel. "Now go get ready for class I don't have time to argue with you and try to teach you the personal responsibility you're incapable of."

Amrenal had mainstream classes he was assigned. There he met his crush, Eona, in one of them. A beautiful dark bruntte girl that always treated him kindly, though he had less and less classes with her. At the end of the last school year Thelma and Asa were complaining "He just wants to have sex with her" Thelma would say as Asa said "mmhmm". She was a tad out of his league, of course. She lived in a rich area and was in a relationship with a hispanic man named Magnusson. Magnusson didn't really socialize with Amrenal, but his and Eona's friends did, and they weren't exactly social with him.

"You gonna banish us again today?" Peter asked Amrenal.

"Dude sorry I just was really stressed out." Amrenal replied. Looking over at Eona he asked, "H-hey how are you today?" as he felt fuzzy all over like he was a broken television about to snap off for good.

"I'm good. How are you?" Eona replied with a smile. It felt like being knighted with a ray of light by the Sun itself.

"Pretty good." Amrenal replied. He didn't know what else to say - his mind was a blank.

Class went normally. Afterwards it was lunch time. Amrenal was starving due to only getting a few bites for breakfast. And today there was decent food. Mashed potatoes and peas and carrots with a slice of chicken. Amrenal went through and used the food card he was given due to not being able to afford to pay with money.

Amrenal sat down at a nearly-empty table. He couldn't see Eona anywhere. Each of the tables were long, but nobody sat at his - Amrenal was partially grateful for this. He felt a pea hit his back and he turned around to see who threw it and saw Peter at the other table giggling. He turned around and went to continue eating as he breathed heavily with anger. A carrot this time.

After lunch as he was walking back to class he started feeling coins hit his legs and back. He turned around and caught one of those who was doing it. He ran at him, he ran away laughing and Amrenal shoved into him as hard as he could, knocking him down and across the floor a bit, not injured but shocked. That's the first time Amrenal reacted with anything more than occassionally throwing the ammunition back. The walk back involved no coins or food hitting him, but was met with something worse.

"We heard that you assaulted a student after lunch." Thelma replied. "You're going to be staying in here for the rest of the day. Nara will be here too to help me in case you decide to assault me, too."

"They were throwing peas and coins at me-"

"And you should have ignored them. Punching back makes you no better." Thelma replied. "Life isn't fair. You need to accept personal responsibility for your own actions and learn how to control yourself. Social skills are the most important thing in life. I have a friend who went to school to be a veterinarian. Know what she ended up doing? Shoveling manure. Because she lacked social skills. You'll be lucky to be doing that when you get older. You think the world revolves around you."

Amrenal sat doing work he had already done before repeatedly. Reading and answering questions on short stories meant for small children when he had already read and done A-graded essays on college level material like The Silmarillion. And Thelma and Dana kept pestering him and talking down to him and about him. Eventually Amrenal had enough. He got up. "I'm going to go to the school cop and press harassment charges!"

Dana and Thelma tried to stop him but Amrenal was a very large man. He just kept walking with determination. They grabbed him and he just kept walking til he wriggled out of the grasp of each - first Thelma then Dana. Thelma shouted to Dana "just let him go!" as Amrenal walked to report what he believed at the time would be clear-cut charges against them.

But when Amrenal reached the cop, it was he who ended up in cuffs. For aggravated assault. Apparently Thelma lied and said that Amrenal had shoved him into the lockers, and she had the bruises to "prove" it. What was more likely is Dana shoved Thelma against the locker and they pinned it on Amrenal.

After a few more involuntary commitments over the course of the couple months and a school change where things went as usual if not worse, Amrenal was willing to admit that he may have had a psychotic break and took a plea deal of simple assault and reckless endagerment that involved probation and a less-than-permanent record instead of jail time and a permanent record. Amrenal would eventually graduate from high school but from a community college meant for delinquents due to losing it again during senior year and swearing profusely at his mother and teachers until he was charged with disorderly conduct and threatened with being not allowed to graduate and held for another year.

Asa evicted him and he went to live in a temporary home for the mentally ill for a time before finally being evicted from there and then ending up homeless as Asa helped pay for a hotel for him to stay at until he found a small efficiency downtown closer to college to stay at.

Eventually his college attendance declined because of all the living arrangement issues, as well as Amrenal sleeping a lot due to the drugs he was forced to take, which caused him to lose financial aid and drop out.

And eventually, he was evicted again, and lived downtown for a time. After getting in altercations with people downtown to the point that one of his now-former friends he had known from the community college, who had become a homeless drug dealer and formed a gang, had started threatening him by throwing tied shoes (a gang turf warning he had learned from watching Fast and Furious) on the fence outside his apartment, he moved back in with his psychologically and verbally abusive mother, who had just attempted to commit him again when Amrenal responded to her concerns about the world ending this year with a quote from scripture "you will neither know the time or the date" and a lack of concern saying "when it ends it ends", which she twisted to imply suicidal intent. During the attempted(ultimately failed after evaluation, thankfully) commitment, a nurse commented that "your constitutional rights go out the window for an involuntary commitment order" when Amrenal complained about the violation of his rights while being processed.

During his stay in town, he had come off of the drugs he was forced to take for three weeks, and as a result, he had the sensation of burning skin that only mildly decreased when, after months of being off them, they were re-prescribed as a condition of his moving back in with Asa.

Asa was a rampant alcoholic at this point. Inevitably, this living arrangement fell through, and Amrenal was staying at an emergency shelter/home for people with Asperger's Disorder. With the only slight disapproval of his then-supportive therapist, Amrenal left a small mess of overturned-but-unbroken furniture on his way out.

That living arrangement fell through, as well, and Amrenal ended up staying with Asa for three weeks before finally finding an apartment on the edge of town. He ended up living there for well over half a decade. During the first few years, another so-called "friend" set him up with a girl with seizure issues. Another "friend" from a fraternity called DeMolay laughed and said "well my brother whoever dated you was going to either have half a boob or half a brain - looks like it was the latter!" Amrenal and this girl were willing to do things together, and cuddled together in tbe buff almost every day for months on end, but Amrenal couldn't use protection due to how it reacted to him, and he couldn't risk getting her pregnant, and the girl made Amrenal, who had the hygeine of a sloth due to spending most of his time at the computer, look clean as someone with OCD down there. And her parents were meth, gambling, and heroin addicts who kept starting drama with Amrenal and making him out to be a control freak as they tried to take her SSDI. During the second relationship, after they did a lobotomy on her in the name of "curing her seizures", they laid into Amrenal with drama right on Christmas Day, getting him a bunch of hygiene products as a low-key insult. After a lot of yelling and arguing and even a near fight between himself and one of the girl's cousins who was hurling the most hate and abuse at Amrenal, he ran out and cried in the snow waiting to die. As usual, death didn't come. It never came, no matter how much Amrenal begged for it or attempted to reach it. The girl was allowed to come home with Amrenal after a few days, and right after the start of the new year, her family started up the drama again. Tired of it, Amrenal helped the girl escape to her father's side of the family on the other side of the state. That ended up being the end of the relationship - stated reasons because it was long distance, because Amrenal yelled at her a few times during the course of the relationship, and because Amrenal refused to have sex with her. Despite cutting off contact with her and her friends and family, Amrenal did end up hearing against his will that she went with a man twice her age after Amrenal, and that that man beat her constantly, and she finally got pregant like she wanted to, with said man, and they had a boy. Amrenal, about a year later, had his home invaded with the threat of a police search by the girl's heroin-addicted mother. Amrenal, after letting her search threatened her out with knifepoint and threatened to have her searched if they called, because at that point, for months, Amrenal had been unprescribed the drugs he was forced on for most of his childhood, teenage years, and young adulthood. His veins and mind were finally his own again - he was finally himself again - and he was absolutely done taking abuse and torment from these hateful psychopaths.

Amrenal posted about his experiences online. Vented about the abuse ideologues and systems like the ones he grew up under the thumb of were still committing against children like him. The bodies of children, war crimes committed at home and abroad published online, haunted his thoughts. He booted up Skyrim to relax with his charater Nyx.

Suddenly, as he logged on and went to the area of the new mod he installed, his apartment started to vanish right in front of him. The cold from outside crept inside, but outside was not the local major road. His head pounded, throbbed. His mother twisted into the form of a Shivarra. His old teacher, her teacher's pet, the bus driver - they all took the forms of multi-armed torturers. He could hear himself screaming and them laughing as they tortured him - but he was somehow detached from it all. And he realized who he was - Aman'thul.

"I'm deeply sorry about all of this. My mind has been on a hopefully-unlikely future my brother may be temporarily condemned to, and my self-titled 'mother' has been using my powers to torture you as I attempted to contact you via said powers and talk to you without her being aware. You ended up experiencing that potential future full blast - albeit slightly-altered at the start. That 'father', sadly, was not absent, and no better than the 'mother'. And the mother was the one labeled by the father as schitzophrenic, and as you saw, for good reason. But enough about that. Hopefully Chaos will heed my warnings and find another, different way to defeat Lucifer and Yahweh and stop the influx of tortured souls from that depraved planet. For now, we need to focus on making sure your own sanity doesn't to these murderous psychopaths." a voice spoke. This one was different - not one of the Shivarra. "My name is Night. Nyx Kushin. And I will rescue you - though, it will take time. I know you might think I'm a delusion - that your mind is telling you what you want to hear - but I am very real, and I intend to live and prove it to you firsthand - and if my brother gets trapped, I hope you can help me return the favor."

"How long has it been and who is your brother?"

"Five minutes. And Chaos Kushin. And no, he despises the Burning Legion and would never harm a child, including a titan child. Nor would I. Your understanding of his name and the word 'chaos' is due to the actions of his doppleganger - his twin brother - Melkor, who was responsible for the corruption of the Nathrezim and ultimately the Burning Legion."

"I spent two and a half decades in the last five minutes?" Aman'thul replied, not yet ready to tackle the rest of the expositional onslaught he had just been handed involving Chaos somehow being the good guy in this story - though after all he had just been through it was as believable as anything else, really. "And as long as he's willing to save Azeroth and not burn every man, woman, and child in existence to ash, sure."

"Thank you. I have your word then." Nyx Kushin replied, while adding, "And to be clear, that 'two and a half decades' was only a nanosecond of those five minutes."

"A nanosecond in five minutes...how many more nanoseconds...how many minutes...will I be trapped here?"

"Well over five and a quarter billion Azerothian minutes, sadly." Nyx Kushin replied.

"OVER TEN THOUSAND YEARS?!" Aman'thul bellowed. "THERE'S NO WAY ME AND MY BRETHEREN WILL LAST THAT LONG!"

"There is now that I'm here. I just have one more favor to ask."

"Anything." Aman'thul replied. "Please, name ten thousand demands if you wish."

"Just a second one - let me change the timeways." Nyx Kushin replied. "You were made by beings known as the Valar and the Aedra to terraform the now-quarantined parts of this galaxy you call 'the universe'. You were given vast control over time and you and your dragon allies, while they stand no chance against me, could give me quite the headache, and my brother potentially a lot more of one, if I tried to do it without asking first. This is obviously not how things are meant to be. Surely you've seen a vision of Sargeras's sword stabbing into Azeroth. Surely you've heard the screams of burning children in a tree that Nozdormu refused to bless. Surely you've seen a woman like the ones you saw in the vision you had just now standing on the ashes trying to free herself from the eternal hell she has earned for herself with her hateful actions. Help me break the wheel of fate. Let me forge a new destiny that doesn't involve so much misery, death, grief, and loss. Asara, like all good liars, seeded hers with one truth - another world is possible, if you would allow it."

"That all?" Aman'thul asked. "By all means, if you can do better, do so. I'm sure you can do worse than I have, but things are bad enough as it is."

"It can always get worse." Nyx replied. "It can always be worse. But that doesn't mean we should tolerate how things are now. And I'm not going to. I'm glad you've chosen to join me in my intolerance. Now to make this more tolerable... Mind you, your spiritual body and those of your peers will respond to your surroundings as if ten thousand years passed - I'm only preserving the core of your consciousnesses, I have to leave the rest of you and your spiritual bodies in a state of torture to keep up the facade that I'm not here helping you. And there's nothing I can do for Argus - believe me, I wish there was. No offense, but the whole origination device protocol and the mass murder of children that resulted from it makes me want to save him a lot more than you. But I can only save you. I do have a plot to ultimately save Argus from nonexistence, but for now, let's focus on making sure at least a part of your consciousness survives the next ten thousand years."

The screams and laughter got higher and higher and the shivarra moved faster and faster until they were a blur. "Shit. I just lost Aggramar. I'm sorry, I tried, but they invaded the part of his mind that I was putting a time dilation field on. He told me to let go for your sake." Aggramar eventually got up, corrupted and coated in fire, and raced around the room back and forth. Eventually things began to slow down, until fighting could be heard outside.

"Hang in there, guys! We're coming to get ye out!" Magni shouted.

"Don't listen to them, Aman'thul! You know the truth! They're going to-EEK!" Asara hissed as a purple shot of pure Void energy flew right past her, cutting a wound into her cheek. A gnome with black hair - Puntificate - could be heard giggling about said shot that she just fired.

"They killed Varimathras!" Noura spat. "How dare they!"

"His fate was ours to decide. You will pay for your insolence, mortals!" Asara replied.

Kalentrist, coated in blue fire, stepped forward. "We are mortals. You, moreso." She looked up and growled and then grew, muscles bulging out, as her top blew off and she turned into a massive demon.

Wings grew on Kalentrist's bare back as she swung violently at Noura's torso, gouging out a part of it. Noura began regenerating and she hurled fire at Kalserra. "I can't wait to hear your flesh sizzle", Noura replied.

Puntificate(Nyx's Covert Shade in Azeroth following the dystopic timeline portrayed in Legion and Battle for Azeroth) with a small army of Priests, Mages, Death Knights, and Paladins, Kalentrist with a small army of Shades, Warlocks, Monks, Shaman, Rogues, and fellow Demon Hunters, and Bourque with a small army of Hunters, Warriors, and Druids, each came up and began assaulting the Coven.

Puntificate attacked with Void and Light energy and a strange blue energy - chaos/ki/ley energy - that had the capacity to turn into the former two and vice versa at will, with Kalserra wielding it as well, turning it into fel, fire, void, and arcane and back again. Bourque's bullets screamed through the Coven's bodies as their flesh was torn out of them splattering across the floor.

Some of the army fell, but for every soldier they lost, the Coven lost much more. Their stamina wore more and more and they began to use the powers of their tortured prisoners to defend themselves.

But it was no use. The Shivarra coven, who took a demonic life pact, fell together.

Diima looked up at the soul of Aman'thul, and uttered her dying words. "We...were both fools...but now...you...are truly...wise..."

Asara looked up at Puntificate. "You wouldn't kill your own mother, would you?"

Puntificate's face was an expressionless frown with lowered eyelids screaming apathy and disinterest. "You aren't worthy of existence, let alone personhood, womanhood, or motherhood." After saying that, she casually raised her hand, and with a loud bang of clashing light and void energy turning into a fel explosion within inches of Asara's face, splattered pieces of Asara's head across the room. Her frown turned to a smile as she giggled and copped a feel on Asara's cold behind and raised her hand and pocketed Asara's sheath for use in Shadow spec.

Puntificate raised her hands - the sight reminded Aman'thul of a feeling he felt in that vision he saw when Nyx first tried to communicate with him. Thankfully he didn't feel it when he saw Eonar, that would have been awkward. As Puntificate cast mass resurrection on her fallen allies, she also cast it on the Pantheon. Once resurrected, Eonar kissed Aman'thul on the cheek on the way to the Seat of the Pantheon, smiling at a shocked and blushing Aman'thul. Aman'thul looked forward and shook his head saying "hmpfh, mortals..." as he sat down.

As Aman'thul looked across the cosmos, horror crept across his face. Oh dear...Argus has gone mad. And it looks like Chaos did indeed do exactly what Nyx advised he not do.

The worst possible scenarios are playing out - Umbra Vigil agents across the board, even covert ones like Kisuke Urahara, are trained to expect and prepare for said scenarios, but Aman'thul and his Pantheon were not.

They had always worked to avoid those scenarios entirely - with little to no success. And he could see why: He didn't act, and when he did, the action recklessly harmed innocent lives and helped nothing.

When Sargeras murdered a Titan child, Aman'thul should have acted then and there. Aman'thul should have led instead of ruling, acting more, and more responsibly/morally, in the process.

Perhaps if mortals were tasked with protecting world souls, the nathrezim would never have taken and corrupted that titan child Sargeras murdered in the first place.

Perhaps Sargeras would not have been overwhelmed by his duty and could have approached the situation more calmly and rationally, coming to the Pantheon instead of abruply acting. How many worlds joined the Legion because the Pantheon's irresponsibility?

It was time to take personal responsibility, and not sit idly by as existence devolved around them. It was time to stand with the Umbra Vigil instead of being pawns of the legion or the void.

It was time for him to keep his word as Nyx and her Vigil always tries their hardest to do.

As Puntificate and her army defended herself against Argus as the Pantheon aided her, he thought to himself:

I must act. I must do all in my power to help Nyx and her allies ensure that Chaos does not follow in Argus' footsteps. For if he does, we are all doomed.

The righteousness of the oppressed is a force that no power of any size can win against. The Legion fell to it, and in its final, desperate hour sought to wield it through Argus.

Unlike Argus, Chaos knows this, and he will keep that knowledge even in the lowest pits of madness, and cling to that power none on the planet he's trapped on believe exists.

And one day he, along with that power, will be set free - to use it for pleasure...or for pain.

He has plenty of personal responsibility. Its time for us to accept it ourselves, as well.

If we act in such a way that we earn pleasure, our universe will enjoy an unprecedented golden age.

If we act in such a way that we earn pain, Azeroth, and a soon-to-be-resurrected Argus, will be the last of our kind, and the average age of her remaining denizens will be much lower.

Chaos is strong, but he is not perfect or omnipotent. As we have learned, omnipotence is a delusion. All beings are fallible. We need to help Nyx support his mind.

Surely, with that support, it will outweigh the billions knowingly and unknowingly helping drive him to madness and despair.

Surely, no matter what happens, he will see Nyx is real and still alive even if they finish murdering him before Nyx saves him.

Surely, he will keep his word and return home after claiming justice and vengeance against that hateful, pernicious planet, help Nyx heal Azeroth, and rest for a time before returning to his duties as the vanguard of the rights-enforcing vigilante militia Nyx heads known as the Umbra Vigil.

"You overestimate your new allies, Highfather. They will see it my way, and they will fall like I fell. You will join me not long after." Sargeras said to Aman'thul.

"You underestimate the tenacity of mortals, brother." Aman'thul replied. "They have strength that you once possessed - that you threw away in exchange for power and a mad plan that has failed and always will fail."

Years later, Sargeras was consumed by that tenacity and strength. Kalserra came up after the resurrection of Teldrassil and watched as Nyx turned a screaming Sargeras blue with chaos fire. The flames turned to chaos energy - ley energy - and flowed into Nyx's Shade in Tyria - a drop of water in the ocean of energy she's using to free her brother Chaos, to return him to herself, their lovers/wives, and their adopted daughters Sofie and Lucia, and their son/brother Erebus, and all their other allies, to finally relax, free from the torture of those who seek to sacrifice innocent lives for the sake of one of countless, ultimately-indistinguishable, misanthropic "greater goods."

Another world is possible, but only if we allow it.


End file.
